The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
Exercise is labor without weariness.
Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel.
Words are but the signs of ideas.
Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
Love is only one of many passions.
A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.
Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
The happiest part of a man’s life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
No man was ever great by imitation.
The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.